"On the Road" with 61 North

Before a devastating car accident on New Year’s Day in 2004, music was Ryan “Gooch” Nelson’s life.

He was obsessed with Dave Matthews and Ben Harper records and loved playing guitar, bass and drums with friends. So when the fact that he was now a quadriplegic sank in, his thoughts naturally turned to music.

“I never, ever thought even twice about not being able to walk,” says Nelson, 23, who is now confined to a wheelchair. “I didn’t care about walking — I couldn’t play guitar. I’d hear a song that I used to be able to play and I’d just start tearing up.”

Two years after the accident, Nelson’s grandfather, Bill Culp, gave him an electric guitar for slide. Nelson eventually learned to play slide guitar by laying it on his lap and using a custom slide. Though the movement in his right arm was limited, he was able to flick his hand to pluck the strings.

These days, Nelson’s playing is the centerpiece of 61 North, a rising rock band in the area.

This past summer, the band performed in the Spark Summer Series at the Deer Park Tavern, in Newark, and followed that up with an appearance on Mark Rogers’ “Hometown Heroes” program on WSTW 93.7-FM.

Then the Woodstown, N.J.-based band released its debut, “On the Road,” a 14-track album melding rock and blues. Two weeks ago, the band won the WSTW Homey Award for Best Rock Song of the Year for the ferocious single, “Loaded Gun.”

They now have regular monthly gigs at Kildare’s Pub and Home Grown Cafe, in Newark, and are eyeing a fall tour of college campuses.

“Their hook is Ryan’s abilities and what he’s overcome, but once you get past that, they are a quality band,” says WSTW’s Rogers. “I would put them in a category of bands that really could make it big if they get the right break. They have all the necessary elements and I don’t say that about every band.”Fateful meeting, fateful day

On the night before Nelson’s accident, he bumped into an old childhood friend, Brian LaPann.

They hadn’t seen each other for years, since LaPann transferred to Tatnall School, near Greenville, Del., but they began talking music and a friendship was rekindled.

Before the New Year’s Eve party ended, they exchanged phone numbers to set up a time to play guitar together.

But around 3 p.m. the next day, everything changed.

In Alloway, N.J., Nelson drove his Ford pick-up truck into a telephone pole. Nelson’s head slammed into the truck’s roof, compressing a vertebra.

A friend was ejected through a window but was not seriously injured. Emergency workers found Nelson, bleeding heavily, hanging out of the back window into the bed of the truck. They had to use a defibrillator several times to keep him alive.

He was airlifted to Cooper University Hospital, in Camden, N.J., and was soon transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, in Philadelphia, for surgery.

At that point, aside from slight movement of his arms, Nelson couldn’t move his body below his neck.

He was told he would never walk again.

No one had to tell him he would never play guitar again. He believed that on his own.

After avoiding music for a long time — even spotting a guitar magazine in Wal-Mart would upset him — he decided he wanted to hear music again. Nelson soon began hosting jam sessions with LaPann. He would hit a bongo drum the best he could and sing along.

“It started to feel good being around music again,” Nelson says. “It really gave me a good outlet.”

LaPann would come over and the pair would work on basic blues songs. The first song they learned together was Eric Clapton’s version of “Mean Old World,” with Duane Allman on slide guitar.

“The bottom line was that he couldn’t really play much more than blues in the beginning,” says LaPann, 22, a University of Delaware graduate, who used to play with his old band, Riverside, in the lobby of Russell Hall. “That’s why we started with blues. This guy was basically learning to play guitar all over again.”

In the summer of 2006, they began playing as a duo at the Beans Coffee Shop, in Woodstown, and at backyard barbecues.

Because Nelson cannot hold a slide, a friend made a custom blown glass slide that his left thumb fits into, allowing him to move it up and down the neck of the guitar. He places a pick on his right thumb, and even though he cannot move his thumb, he is able to flick his wrist just enough to strum the guitar.

After months of performing together, they decided to expand into a full band, which now includes bassist Bob Comfort and drummer Joe Bross. Guitarist LaPann is also the lead singer.

Nelson and LaPann, who have grown close through Nelson’s recovery, write the bulk of the band’s songs.

“It’s your worst nightmare — having a passion and than having it stripped from you,” LaPann says.

Helping others

In October, the band hosted the first 61 North Benefit Concert for Spinal Cord Injury, raising more than $4,000 with a concert at Salem Community College.

The Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, where Nelson spent six months after his accident, and the New Jersey-based Adam Taliaferro Foundation, which helps athletes who suffer spinal cord injuries, were the beneficiaries. (The foundation is named after the former Penn State football player who was paralyzed making a tackle in a 2000 game but has since regained his ability to walk.)

While in rehab, Nelson saw others who didn’t have the support system he had. He watched them worry about how they would pay their mortgages or how they would afford the equipment they needed to get in and out of bed.

“I don’t want to see someone have to worry about stuff like that when they are already facing a whole new life,” Nelson says. “We wanted to help, and we’re doing it with music.”

And even though their mission and Nelson’s injury are serious, the band still keeps a sense of humor. “It’s good because every rock and roll band has to put someone through rehab and we got that out of the way,” LaPann says to laughs during a break from practice at Nelson’s Woodstown home, where Nelson lives with his parents and brother.

The band members practice and record demos in the 12-year-old salt box-style farmhouse whenever they want, which is quite a gift from Nelson’s parents, John and Eileen, considering how loud they can be. (It took only a few practices for the band to begin using earplugs.)

Eileen Nelson, a rock music fan and hairdresser, often finds herself feeding the band and even giving them all haircuts whenever needed.

The free practice space allowed the band to save up money from gigs to pay for the album. They spent $7,000 to make “On the Road
,” recorded at the Gradwell House, in Haddon Heights, N.J. (The album is available on iTunes and through the band’s Web site.)

The band took its time to get the album just right; the 60 hours of studio time was spread over six months.

Since the recording, the band has been moving away from the blues and toward a heavier progressive rock sound. The result is bigger-sounding songs, about a dozen of which are already in rotation at their concerts.

As Nelson puts it, “It always feels good to rock hard. We’ve just been putting more heart, more work and more feeling into our songs.”

Physical obstacles

But gigging from bar to bar isn’t always easy for a band with a quadriplegic guitarist.

Performing in places like Old City in Philadelphia is nearly impossible since the small, old buildings don’t have elevators or enough space for Nelson to navigate in his wheelchair.

But they have learned to overcome many of those obstacles. At last year’s annual massive backyard bash Skidfest at UD, the band brought a giant metal ramp and had six big guys clearing a path through the keg party so Nelson could get on stage. “It was like parting the Red Sea,” Comfort says.

And in 2007, Nelson was spotted by slide guitar hero Robert Randolph at the Appel Farm Arts & Music Festival, in Elmer. Randolph called him up on stage before realizing he was in a wheelchair. Randolph then decided they could lift him onto the stage and got LaPann to help.

“[Randolph] told me that the music will lift him,” LaPann remembers. But the 350-pound chair was too much, so Randolph ran a cable out to Nelson, and he played from the floor as Randolph sat on the lip of the stage, jamming along with him.

The band hopes to perform at least 80 dates this year, including a 25-stop tour of Southern colleges. They are also searching for management, since they book all their own shows.

But no matter the work load, the wide-eyed band is just happy to be performing. For Nelson, who went from crying at the sight of a guitar to playing in a popular rock band in the span of only a few years, the smile on his face tells the whole story.

“I feel real lucky,” he says. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

About Ryan Cormier

News Journal features reporter Ryan Cormier throws everything pop culture into a blender and hits frappe. Check out his take on music, movies, celebrities and everything in between. It's what you need to know and a lot more stuff you really don't. Join him on Twitter and Facebook.

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